“I’m just sightseeing, I don’t want an interview, love,” the middle-aged man in the Kangol baseball cap and hard leather shoes (no socks) tells me. His lonely screams – no less than two minutes earlier – of “Innocent! Innocent!” made me question the sightseeing defence. I am outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court for the first hearing of Russell Brand. There are more press than fans; this man had travelled alone.
“Are you here for Brand?” I ask another man behind me in the queue for security. He sighs, “Oh is that’s what is going on?” I get the sense that big media tussles don’t happen here that frequently, but that they are an enormous pain for everyone when they do. Brand’s mystical figure – or perhaps just preternatural instinct for press attention – made this an exceptional case. He arrived to a throng of photographers and reporters, and in total silence he walked at a snail’s pace to the front door of the court, unsettling and composed, over 6-feet tall with aviator sunglasses, a black shirt buttoned down to this sternum.
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Last month Brand was charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault in incidents involving four separate women between 1999 and 2005. There was a scrum to get into Court 1, where Brand had these charges and the conditions of his bail read out to him. He sat alone behind a glass screen in the dock, sunglasses in his hands now; his hair is typically long and his expression was still; he really does look a bit like Jesus. The comedian-cum-YouTube preacher has denied the accusations and said he has “never engaged in non-consensual activity”.
Brand has been through a vertiginous personal evolution. Once he was just a regular shock-jock political commentator. He sparred with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight about bankers, he hosted anti-austerity marches, he endorsed Ed Miliband in 2015, and guest-edited an issue of this magazine. Now, over on his YouTube channel he preaches messianically about the Great Reset, the profiteering military-industrial complex and the lying establishment. He has converted to Christianity – and marked the occasion with a baptism in the Thames. Somewhere in Brand’s career he became infected with all the anxieties of the new American right.
It seems, more than anything, that all this once-venerated left-wing populist wanted was to be famous. His stint in the foothills of Hollywood (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek) angled him towards a new level of stardom. But today he sits alone in court, once the mob of photographers had subsided and the reporters had taken their seats, perhaps more famous than he has ever been. It is strange to witness a man so defined by his voice – a rhythmic cockney accent, the cadence of slam-poetry meeting the content of Spiked magazine – so silent. The 49-year-old only spoke to confirm he understood his bail conditions, and to give his name, date of birth and address. Finally, the most important performance of his life and the self-styled messiah has lost his voice.
Brand left with an entourage: an American whom I overheard complain about the English; a small man, kind of like a shrunken Conor McGregor, with a tattooed neck; someone who looked like the TikTok sensation famous for eating large Chinese takeaways, “Big John”. As Brand walked out of court – this time the police had instilled a better crowd control system: we were pinned up to barriers – he was surrounded by them and his lawyers, not looking much like a preacher any more.
He was bundled into a car. All charges have been referred to the Crown Court. The trial continues at the Old Bailey on 30 May.
[See also: What is Nigel Farage really thinking?]
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